14 December 2011 2:28 PM

A minimum price is only part of the solution for reducing our dependency on alcohol

There is another policy salvo being unleashed today on the pricing of alcohol as doctors and academics release another plea via the Daily Telegraph and Dr Sarah Woolaston MP discharges a Westminster Hall debate on the taxation of alcohol. As Scotland makes a second - and likely to be successful - attempt to bring in an alcohol pricing bill this subject won't go away while excessive drinking continues to blight so many lives and cost the NHS and the economy so much.

Total costs of alcohol abuse (and as 2020health's Risky Drinking report pointed out, this includes the ill-health consequences of 8 million adults who are drinking well over the recommended guidelines without getting drunk or being alcoholics) to the Treasury are put at about £55Bn by the National Marketing Centre; income from alcohol tax is about £30Bn. It doesn't make any fiscal sense as our deficit rises that we essentially make a loss on alcohol; this must be a robust economic argument for minimum pricing?

But this alone I don't believe will suffice. To increase public awareness of the risks of alcohol, GPs should ask about alcohol as routinely as they do smoking, and offer an advice session known as a 'Brief Intervention' to those who are drinking to excess (and take into account we usually underestimate our drinking by half). We should also be more aware of how much we are drinking, so unit labels should be compulsory and clearly on the front of bottles and cans.

There is also an urgent need for a review of advertising of alcohol. We are still bombarded in this country in ways that have been outlawed elsewhere in the world - you can't go to a sporting event, order from Amazon, turn on the TV or go to the cinema without being confronted with the lies that drinking alcohol is a pre-requisite to having a good time, that it's refreshing, that it makes you more sexy or that you need more!

I like a G&T as much as the next person, and I do believe that much excessive drinking is due to ignorance of the strength and risks, but cheap booze and easy advertising are making the problem much worse. We await the government's alcohol strategy - will they have the courage to make 'doing the right thing' a habit?

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JULIA MANNING

Julia studied visual science at City University and became a member of the College of Optometrists in 1991. Her career has included being a visiting lecturer in at City University, visiting clinician at the Royal Free Hospital, working with Primary Care Trusts and a Director of the UK Institute of Optometry. She also specialised in diabetes and founded Julia Manning Eyecare, a practice for people with mental and physical disabilities. In 2006 she established 2020health.org, an independent Think Tank for Health and Technology. Research publications have covered public health, telehealth, workability, pricing of medicines, biotechology, NHS reform and fraud.